How “The 88″ Recorded Their New Song With Only An iPhone
This is a video of The 88 recording “Love Is The Thing” on an iPhone!
Get “Love Is The Thing” on iTunes!
Back story from their web site http://The88.net:
This Spring, we were on tour opening up for the B-52s, with shows all around the East Coast. One day while we were driving, Keith was browsing through the applications on the iPhone and came across FourTrack. We thought this app would be a great way to record song ideas while we are away from home.
So we downloaded it, and I thought it would be a neat experiment to record the full band on a phone. I was very curious to see how it would sound.
First, we picked out a tempo that felt right for the song. We used a pair of our own headphones that plugged directly into the iPhone. The first track we recorded was acoustic guitar.
Keith recorded a quick scratch vocal just to have something in place for us to listen to that we would eventually record over. Then we used Anthony’s daughter’s toy drum set that he played with brushes. (In order to get a good volume level that didn’t overload the phone, we covered the drum set with a sheet.)
Keith played the electric and slide guitars through an old Silvertone Amp that a good friend gave to us a long time ago. I recorded the piano part on a small Yamaha keyboard using the built-in speakers.
We ran the bass through a practice guitar amp to give it a different sound and to also keep a similar theme with the way we recorded the drums. We recorded the backup vocals like they did in the old days — we all gathered around the phone and sang all the parts onto one track.
All in all, thanks to the bounce feature on FourTrack, we laid down 14 tracks — including a crash cymbal I added at my house at the end.
After finishing a mix of the song, we really liked the way everything was sounding, however we thought that the lead vocal sounded a bit distant. We ended up using an Alesis ProTrack, which allows you to connect an iPod or an iPhone to both a microphone and headphones, and adjust your input level.
So that’s the way we recorded “Love Is The Thing” on the iPhone. We hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it! – Adam
TRACKS RECORDED 6/8/09
- Acoustic guitar
- Scratch Vocal (which was replaced)
- Drums
- Bass
- Electric Guitar
- Slide Guitar
- Piano
- Backup Vocals
- Hand Claps
- Lo Vocal
- Hi Vocal
- Double Vocal (which was replaced)
- Shakers
- Crash
- Vocal (recorded on 6/13/09)
- Double Vocal (recorded on 6/13/09)
Get “Love Is The Thing” on iTunes!
Visit the web site for more including additional session photos
[wpp keyword="recording studio" limit_page="2"]Related posts:
- Can a Whole Song be Recorded with Just an Internal Microphone?
- An iPhone “Must Have” Music App – From McDSP? Wait…What?
- Apogee Announces ‘Mike iOS’ Microphone For iPad, iPhone & Mac
- TC Electronic Set To Release New PolyTune iPhone App
- Aligning Tracks Recorded With Multiple Microphones? Try Auto-Align by SoundRadix!
